Tom Coronel 1000km race report

Tom Coronel's test race with Lister unrewarded
Tom Coronel did a lot of lapping with the brand new Lister Storm LMP900
this weekend during the 1000 km race of Le Mans. It was the first
acquaintance, but as for Tom, certainly not the last. The ...

Tom Coronel's test race with Lister unrewarded

Tom Coronel did a lot of lapping with the brand new Lister Storm LMP900
this weekend during the 1000 km race of Le Mans. It was the first
acquaintance, but as for Tom, certainly not the last. The Dutchman was
impressed by the new car that he shared with Jamie Campbell-Walter and
Nathan Kinch. Qualifying was dominated by the Team Goh Audi followed by
the Racing for Holland Dome-Judd in the hands of Jan Lammers and Andy
Wallace. Third was taken by Coronel and his British teammates. In the
six-hour race victory was taken by the Audi of Kristensen and Ara,
followed by the Pescarolo Courage and the Racing for Holland Dome. The
Lister suffered from a broken drive shaft causing the team to drop back
to 29th place overall. Despite that the team managed to set the third
fastest time of the race. Initially Tom Coronel was also set to drive an
Ascari in the EuroBOSS race today, but due to the weather conditions
decided not to start the race after he qualified in second place

Tom Coronel: "I was asked not too long before this race weekend by the
Lister management whether I was interested to do the 1000 km of Le Mans
with the new LMP 900 car. They wanted to use my experience with the Audi
and the Dome, in order to improve the Lister. To be honest I was quite
impressed with what I saw this weekend, which was undoubtedly proven by
the laptimes this weekend. The car has a great potential. Lister intends
to enter the Le Mans 24 hour race next year, so it was decided to enter
this race in order to do some race testing and also to show the
organisers the capabilities of the car. This weekend we raced at the
short Bugatti track instead of the long 24 hour circuit. Unfortunately
after 10 laps the drive shaft broke. The crew never though about giving
up and after a one hour delay we rejoined the race. Of course we dropped
back a lot, but we managed to gain a lot of data and experience in the
remaining laps. For me it was a good sign that we were able to keep up
with the Dome, the Courage and the Audi in qualifying. From a personal
point of view it was good to put myself in the picture in Europe. I am
more or less the unofficial Lister reserve driver. When one of the
drivers is unable they ask me to jump in the car. Lister certainly has
serious plans for the Le Mans 24 hour race in the next few years. However
it remains to be seen in what way I will be involved in this. The first
thing will be to gain an entry from the ACO. After that the team can
start to make some further plans. However I think the Lister will for
sure be an extra attraction to the Le Mans 24 hour race, and that is not
just for the large contingent of British supporters that make the trip
down to La Sarthe every year!"

Tom Coronel will now fly to Japan for the final race of a busy racing
season. At Suzuka he will once more team up with Daisuke Ito in the Honda
NSX for the eighth round of the Japanese GT series.